Tuesday, March 13, 2018

AmateurNikon Enters an Indefinite Hiatus

December 2018 Update:
I guess it's only fair to admit that the hiatus is no longer "short", as originally stated, but indefinite. The website will remain online normally.


July 2018 Update:

I just thought to let AmateurNikon readers know that, although the website remains in a hiatus, it is not abandoned. I am busy with other things, that interest me more than photography does at this point in time. However, amateurnikon.com is not going anywhere, and when things change in regard to my interest in photography, new articles will come. Thanks!


It has been quite a while since the last post - about a month - and there have been several reasons for this. I have been extremely busy with several things, plus other reasons. One of them indeed has to do with the fact that I have not been very interested in photography recently.

I'm unsure why that is - maybe I feel that I prefer to artistically express myself some other way. Or maybe my outlook has changed, I don't know.

I also feel less and less interested in photographic equipment. I simply don't care what's Nikon's latest DSLR or lens, they all do the same job, ultimately.



Instead of repeating myself, I decided to press "pause" for (hopefully) a short while and come back when I feel that I have something to say, photographically speaking. The website will remain active normally, so feel free to check old Nikon reviews, Photoshop tutorials, or general thoughts on photography.

Au revoir!

Friday, February 16, 2018

Photoshop Tutorial: Suppressing Shadow Noise

Here's a quick Photoshop tutorial, after quite some time. Today I'll show you how to suppress shadow noise. It is often the case that noise generated by digital sensors is visible only in shadows. Try it yourself, if you'd like: take a photo of a bright, well-lit wall at ISO 6400, then do the same for a dimmer environment (e.g. turn some lights off). Although your exposure values are the same, you will notice that the noise levels are more visible in the second case.

Scenes involving large, even dark areas, are particularly prone to noise


Friday, February 2, 2018

Review of the Tokina SD 35-200mm f/4-5.6

General
Going through a near-forgotten hard drive, I discovered some old pictures taken with a wild assortment of lenses. Beginning my... digital photography life, I remember desperately trying to find a "magic" lens, that would give me superb image quality at a very low price. We have all been naive at some point or another... In any case, one of those lenses was the Tokina SD 35-200mm f/4-5.6. It's a manual-focus lens from the old days of photography. I remember that I'd bought it for just a few bucks, thinking (laugh all you want) that I'd managed to find the perfect lens.

200mm is good to have, but the image quality leaves a lot to be desired


Pros/Cons
+ Nice focal-length range (especially for FX); also comes with a "macro" switch that allows you to get closer
+ solid construction quality
used models (the only available!) of the Tokina SD 35-200mm f/4-5.6 can be cheap